Pope Francis threw his spiritual weight behind a global initiative to defend son’s fundamental rights in spite of the religious church’s individual poor track record protecting them from physical abuse by convening a high-level summit on Monday. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most frequently ratified human rights agreement in history, but it is hardly ever enforced on an equal level, Queen Rania of Jordan said at the opening of the mountain.
” In theory, the global consensus is obvious: every right, for every child”, she told the meeting in the Apostolic Palace. However, so many children are stymied by its promises, especially in warzones, all over the world. Worse still, people have developed a sense of discomfort.
She cited a mental study on Gaza’s most vulnerable babies, after more than a year of living through the Israel-Hamas battle, that found 96 per cent believed their death was imminent, and half said they wanted to die. How did we allow our civilization to manifest in this?” she asked.
Roman senator Liliana Segre, a 94-year-old Holocaust veteran, told the meeting that she was denied the right to knowledge when Italy’s fascist-era cultural regulations went into effect in 1938 and Israeli children were barred from college.
” We were surrounded by an apathy that often is worse than murder”, she said.
Segre has paid the price by teaching today’s children about antisemitism and the necessity to never turn away when injustices occur. She has spent her life teaching this message. ” I am the oldest woman in the world with a police escort and am insulted and threatened, despite not having done anything”, she said.
Francis, for his portion, listed the dreadful description of plights facing hundreds of millions of yesterday’s children: conflicts, poverty, prostitution and forced marriage. He also made reference to the 150 million “invisible” or asynchronous babies who were undocumented when they immigrated or were not registered at birth.
” This is an obstacle to their entering education or health care, yet worse however, since they do not like legal shelter, they can easily be abused or sold as slaves”, he said.
He cited Myanmar’s Rohingya kids, as well as the illegal migrants crossing the US-Mexican borders. ” Those were the first victims of that exodus of anguish and promise made by the thousands of people who were traveling from the South to the United States of America, along with many others,” he said.
Many speakers cited the UN agreement on the rights of the child, the UN treaty ratified by 196 countries which sets out the basic rights all kids enjoy, including the right to life, ethnicity, freedom of thought and faith, health and education. It urges members to take all necessary steps to safeguard children from harm and prioritize their own interests above all else.
The Holy See, a UN spectator position, ratified the convention in 1990.
The Holy See was criticized by the commission overseeing its implementation in 2014 for the international sex abuse and cover-up controversy and requested by the Vatican to submit a report back on how it had done in 2014. Countries generally follow these recommendations, and the Holy See has yet to release a new country record.
In a letter to the Holy See in 2021, a group of UN specific rapporteurs who monitor specific human rights issues expressed worry about “persistent” situations of abuse, cover-up, and obstruction by the religious church in preventing patients from pursuing justice for their abuse.
